It was almost seven o’clock before Muir came to get Joe for supper.

When they had gotten back to the room after lunch, the big man secured Joe’s right wrist to the bedpost, then left, and the teen had been trying to get loose since.

So by seven, his wrist was raw but he felt he was getting close to breaking the post on the canopy bed that he was cuffed to.  He could feel it starting to ‘give’ a bit more when he shook it.  Man, it was a solid bed!

Joe was figuring he’d break the post, slip the cuff off over it and then attempt another escape.  He knew that Muir told him the balcony was too high for him to climb down, but the younger Hardy was not one to be that easily daunted.

And in the back of his mind were the last words he’d heard from the old man…. Wonder what fear does to them…? Joe really had no intention of sticking around to find out!

“Dinner is in ten minutes,” Muir’s monotone voice informed him, “I have brought you suitable attire for the affair.”

Joe scoffed.  He was sitting up on the side of the bed and glared at the clothes that the manservant was laying out on the bed: another pirate outfit, but this one even had a multicolored raglan to wear overtop.  Joe wondered if they borrowed this wardrobe from the Pirates of the Caribbean….

“What, no parrot?” he said sarcastically, but Muir just looked at him, the joke apparently lost on him; and he stood there looking at Joe expectantly.

“What?” Joe started, and then saw the fixed look and held up his free hand.  “No way. You gotta be kidding!  If you want me to wear that costume, you need to give me some privacy.  I ain’t taking off my skivvies with you here!”

The giant shrugged.  “As you wish. I will do it for you.”

Horrified, Joe found out he had no problem at all changing his clothes with Muir there, well, until he got to his blouse – that was difficult, as his wrist was still cuffed to the bed. So he put it on as best he could and then had to wait for Muir to unshackle him to finish the rest.

“Are you going to behave or do I need to secure both your wrists again?”  Muir asked as Joe finished buttoning up his latest frilly punishment.

“Depends,” Joe admitted, “on whether or not I get another chance to escape.”

“You haven’t done so, so far,” was Muir’s reply as he started to handcuff Joe again, but then stopped and left him unfettered, attesting to his belief in Joe’s ability to escape, “and you will not.  To the dining room, please.”  Muir cocked an eyebrow and finished, “Or shall I just carry you again?”

“I’m walking,” Joe griped, and started out of the room, being careful to take in every detail on his way downstairs.  When he got out of the handcuffs, and if the balcony plan wasn’t workable, he was determined he’d know the layout anyway.  “So, you going to tell me why I’m here…?  Or does it just give the old nutcase some thrill to dress me up like a…like a…” Joe looked down at his new clothes and grimaced, “like a matador?”

Muir didn’t say anything.

Sighing, Joe was thankful for only one thing – that Frank couldn’t see him now.

* * *

“Any luck yet?” Tony Prito asked as he slid into the booth next to Frank, and glanced from Frank to Phil expectantly, but both just shook their heads.

They had decided to drop by Mr. Pizza’s to grab something to eat, after spending the last couple of hours trying to find anyone who might have seen even the smallest thing.  But no one had – or at least no one was admitting to it.

“Not yet,” admitted Frank as he sat back in his seat, and then gave his Italian friend a wry smile, “But thanks for helping out Con.  It’s the first solid lead we’ve had…the only one we’ve got, actually.”

Tony remembered taking a call for one of their regular Saturday lunch customers – a teen named Liam Brady, and he gave the info to Officer Riley.  It was a long shot, as Tony had no way of knowing if the call he took was the one that came from Joe’s cell, but it was the only thing they had to go on.

“The chief sent a unit to Liam’s house, but so far no luck. No one’s home,” Frank admitted, and then nodded to Biff when the muscular teen sat down across from him, “but it doesn’t make sense.  Liam knows Joe and, as far as I know, has no beef with him – why would he have anything to do with Joe’s disappearance?”

Biff picked up a slice of pizza and took a bite.  He listened to Frank and then added, “Actually, if anything, Liam owes Joe.”

“What do you mean?” Tony asked as three sets of eyes were now turned on the bulky blond.

“About two weeks ago, Liam ran into car trouble and Joe stopped and gave him a hand.”

“That was Liam?” Frank said.  Joe had been late picking Frank up from Phil’s and told him he’d had to give a guy a hand with his car. But he never knew it was Liam Brady.

Biff chuckled, “I guess Joe figured he’d save himself a lecture so he left out that minor detail.”

“Lecture?” Frank said, appalled , “I wouldn’t have given him a lecture!  Just because Brady is a delinquent who would cut your throat as soon…” he trailed off and then gave a sly little smile, “hmmm, actually, yeah, I would have. “

As the friends shared a small chuckle over that, it did nothing to lessen their concern for Joe.  And as silence fell over the four teenagers, Frank wondered if this is what it would be like if they didn’t find Joe in time….

Would there always be this silence?

* * *

As Joe took his seat and was cuffed to the chair again, Antoine watched him but said nothing.

Muir left to bring out the food, and placed it on the table but still the old man said nothing.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Joe said after about ten minutes of silence was grating on his nerves.  This time he did eat some of the stew Muir had prepared, surprised by just how good it was. He couldn’t be fainting away from hunger if he was planning on busting out of here a little later.

Antoine pushed his bowl away and sat back in his chair, regarding the teen for a long time.  And then he gave a quick nod of his head, and Muir was gone again.

“So, how long did it take to train him to do that?” Joe asked, noting that the manservant seemed to know exactly what his employer wanted with a mere tip of his head.

Mr. Rosado still said nothing.  He just lifted his napkin, wiped the gravy off his thick lips, and then put it back down without breaking eye contact with Joe.

“Okay, now you’re really beginning to freak me out,” Joe said as he pushed his own half eaten stew away, his appetite suddenly lost to a tightening in his stomach.  He could sense something wasn’t right – something was going to happen.  “What’s with the silent treatment?”

The sound of slight scuffling drew Joe’s attention to the side of the room where Muir was dragging someone in.

Joe felt the blood in his veins freeze.  It had not even occurred to him that there might be anyone else here – someone else who had been abducted.

But there was.

A woman, probably in her 30’s, Joe surmised, and Muir was pulling her along.  Although she was struggling, like Joe, she was no match for the giant. The gag in her mouth muffled her screams.

“What’s going on?” Joe demanded, standing up at the table although there was nowhere he could go.

He was ignored.

The gag was taken from the woman’s mouth and she started to shriek, “NO! OH GOD! NO!” She turned her horror-filled gaze on the teenager at the end of the table and she begged him, “Please, you have to help me! Please don’t let them do this!  PLEEASSSE!”

And then with one fluid motion, her screams were abruptly cut off.

Joe stood frozen. He had never seen anything like it. And as he was forced to witness, he suddenly got a very sick comprehension of just what kind of danger he was in; and as the coppery smell of her blood wafted around him Joe lost the battle he’d been having with his stomach….

Amused, Mr. Rosado waited until Joe had recovered himself and he stood up and gazed down lovingly at the dead woman before he placed a kiss on her cheek and then nodded for Muir to take her away.

And then he turned to the pale, slightly trembling teenager leaning weakly against the table, and he smiled widely.  “Why Joseph, I must say, fear brings out the most interesting color in your eyes.”

He moved towards Joe, and the teen lowered his head, unable to look at the face of the madman, now speckled with the poor woman’s blood.

“Hmmm,” he said, hooking his finger beneath Joe’s chin and forcing his tear-streaked face to look at his, “I wonder what grief does…”

* * *

Muir finished the ritual with the body before wrapping it in a tarp, securing both ends and moving it into the back of the limo.  He would get rid of her after he secured the boy for the night.

As he left the room, the woman’s eyes stared lifelessly at his retreating form from their new home…a jar of formalin.